Google's bid to offload the Motorola set-top box business, which it
acquired during the $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility
earlier this year, is proving more difficult than the search giant first
thought.

According to sources speaking to Bloomberg, Google is considering financing options to companies looking at the division in order to get swiftly rid of the ageing unit.

Bloomberg says Arris Group and Pace Plc have shown the most
interest in the Motorola Home division and are leading their bids to
buy the unit. While Pace is an already-established set-top box maker,
Arris offers back-end telephony and networking equipment services to
content providers.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that
the division could be worth as much as $2.5 billion. However, because
Google reportedly wants rid of the division, it is willing to offer up
financing options to successful bidders in efforts to ease the
transition of offloading the unit.

London, U.K.-based Barclays Plc is acting as Google's financial
adviser and is looking at a variety of options, including financing.

A Google spokesperson told ZDNet: "We're not commenting on rumors about the sale of Motorola's set-top box business."

If Google did sell off the unit for even half of the $2.5 billion
that it may be worth, selling the unit at a loss would hit the search
giant badly, but it would still lessen the impact from the overall
Motorola Mobility acquisition.